"This book brings together for the first time archaeological findings from key ports throughout the Indian Ocean - the Red Sea, South Arabia, the Gulf, India and Sri Lanka - to build up a balanced picture of relations between East and West. Combined evidence from artefacts and documents reveals a complex situation whereby ordinary goods were carried alongside the more costly items - such as pepper, aromatics and gems - that drove the trade. Here the focus is on ordinary artefacts used by Romans, Africans, South Arabians, Sasanians and Indians who participated in the trade. The evidence from ceramics, especially, reveals the interplay between these different ethnic groups, where they lived, when the trade was active, and even how it was organised." "The account is arranged geographically, drawing on new evidence from the author's experience of archaeological sites and materials on the Red Sea and in India. A final chapter sketches the changing fortunes of trade between the first century BC and the seventh century AD in the light of these important new archaeological discoveries."--BOOK JACKET.